Registered Investment Advisor – Hampton Roads, Virginia

Just How Rich Is Donald Trump?

There is a problem with trying to figure out what a billionaire is worth. A lot of their assets are in things that are impossible to measure with precision. The average individual can add up their bank accounts and investment accounts. But once it gets beyond those numbers the exact value of “things” like homes gets murky.

For example, your home may have an assessed value, for tax purposes, of $500,000. But the amount you can actually sell it for can range widely, often more than 10% of the assessor’s number. So this typical homeowner can’t be sure of his net worth within $100,000. So if the average American homeowner can’t determine exactly how much he’s worth, it’s a lot harder for a billionaire. For example, some very wealthy people own sports teams and these are assets that are not publicly traded so their actual value is impossible to define as Donald Sterling found out when he was banned from the NBA. The team was estimated to be $324 million but sold for $2 billion.

Donald Trump’s net worth includes lots of real estate, leaseholds and assets like the value of his brand name. That means that the question of “how rich is Donald Trump” is a guesstimate not even Trump can be sure of. But you can be sure that a man with his own Boeing 757 is rich.